Completing instead of competing

“We could write a story. It wouldn’t be that hard.”

With those words, our storybook began. Jonathan and I were sitting in the cushiony blueness of the downtown library, pages of our own illustrations scattered across our table. On this pre-engagement summer day, we were tackling one of our first joint creative projects: a children’s book featuring two kids on a seesaw who, consciously or not, represented us. And like us, they were writing a story together.

“It will have knights and kings!” said the boy, holding up his index finger. Here the illustrations began to distill into dreaminess: A king with ice-blue eyes and a fur-lined robe glared out at us from the page, and a knight in full armor seemed ready to ride right out of the book into the library.

My little girl had other ideas. On the adjacent page she ran into the scene, a kite in hand, saying, “Or kites and strings!”

“And astronauts!” said the boy.

“Or tater tots!” said the girl.

The boy cried, “We need spies who risk their lives!”

The girl contradicted, dreaming up an image of a blushing bride standing outside a chapel: “We need guys who marry wives!”

The story continued in this vein, the boy always choosing the fanciful and the girl insisting on the practical: crypts and tombs versus mops and brooms, curses versus nurses, etc., etc., etc.

“Your story’s boring!” yelled the boy.

The girl countered, “Yours has me snoring!”

Finally an explosion hits the page, mixing up all the illustrations into one, huge, jumbled image. The two children watch as the knight kneels in front of the bride, and the astronaut floats through space, mopping. The boy and girl look at each other with blank faces, surprised because their two visions combine in a way they never expected.

I remember standing up at that point and walking to the library’s restroom to wash the chalk off my hands. I was in that season of contemplation in which a girl begins to love a boy but doesn’t feel certain she’s ready to marry him yet. I felt myself tugged toward what seemed impossible: making space in my story for the story of another. I pulled out my notebook and scrawled, “I am learning the art, as a competitive person, of sharing creative space.”

During marriage counseling, Jonathan and I learned our differences should never place us in competition—rather, they should complete us. God designed it that way. And looking back to my doubtful self in the library restroom that day, I shake my head and chuckle. Learning to share didn’t turn out to be the catastrophe I sometimes feared. In fact, it feels almost inevitable now. How could I ever have doubted?

Jonathan still prefers tombs to brooms, knights to kites, and kings to strings. He loves big ideas, fat books, and made-up tales. I still prefer brides to spies and spend my library time in the nonfiction section, browsing for books that will teach me how to do innovative tasks with my own two hands. We are writing our story this way. And it isn’t as hard as I expected.